To put that in perspective, India's wheat wastage each year is almost equal to Australia's entire production of wheat.

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In some countries, most importantly India, rice and wheat are substitutes for each other.

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Similar arguments apply for items like sugar and wheat, produced in quantity by India, which Pakistan needs.

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The outlook for the winter wheat crop is also poor, with India's main reservoirs, a source for irrigation canals, one-third below their seasonal average.

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All the same, it was Mr Subramaniam who got the wheat growing, skilfully guiding the project through India's political and bureaucratic fog.

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They take place in one of India's largest rural stadiums, which is wedged between wheat and mustard farms a 30-minute drive south of the city of Ludhiana.

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Pre-monsoon showers already have damaged some of the newly-harvested wheat crop in the breadbasket state of Punjab in western India.

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India loses 40m tonnes of fruits and vegetables as well as 21m tonnes of wheat a year because of inadequate storage and distribution.

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India's government usually increases assured prices paid to farmers each year for key staples such as wheat, rice and lentils, aiming to support their incomes and ensure that they don't switch to other less important crops.

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